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Here is a nice Pig designed and built by Tim Stamps. Stamps, mostly known for shaping high performance short boards for pro surfers such as Brett Simpson and Courtney Conlogue, has mad skills for designing longboards and alternative shapes. He did grow up in the shaping room of Rich Harbour, one of the bigs in long boarding since the 1960′s. Tim has knowledge of how a surfboard should work, short or long.

Will give a review and report on this board as I log in some waves and time on the water.

A recently launched Kickstarter project called Trace is like a Nike Fuelband for surfing, skating, skiing, and snowboarding. Except instead of measuring things like steps, this small, light and durable device records everything about your session. It keeps track of the waves you caught while surfing, tricks you landed while skating, and runs taken on the snow. You can pre-order a trace right now on their Kickstarter page which has already seen more than $110,000 in funding.

Trace is the latest offering from ActiveReplay, the startup that created AlpineReplay — a stats-tracking mobile app and the largest social network of skiers and snowboarders in the world. Both Trace and AlpineReplay come from former Magellan Chief Technical Officer, Dr. Anatole Lokshin and his unusual team of engineers/surfers and mathematicians/snowboarders.

For Surfers, Trace measures things like length of ride (time and distance), max speed, air height, how sharp your turns are, and more.

For Skaters, Trace can identify tricks like Kickflips, 360 Flips, while telling you speed, air height and distance, board rotation, and how clean you’re landing your tricks.

For Skiers and Snowboarders, Trace take AlpineReplay to the next level. While measuring the usuals like speed, vertical, and Calories with subsecond accuracy, it can also identify tricks like 360s and backflips — all without draining your phone’s battery.

And it looks like they’re on to something too. Their Kickstarter campaign has already raised $110,000 of their $150,000 goal in less than three weeks and been featured on sites like MagicSeaweed, TheInertia, TechCrunch, Engadget, ESPN, GrindTV, The Berrics, and a slew of action sports blogs.

The campaign has a couple weeks left to reach the remainder of it’s goal. We’re definitely excited to see how this plays into the next generation of action sports. To pre-order a Trace, visit their Kickstarter page.

Here is a look the info once downloaded onto your smart phone.

Here is what you did during your session

Tell us what you think and if you want one. Please support and pre-order

Every now and then we get some editorial sent to us from our friends both local and across the world. Here is an article that was sent in on how to choose a surfboard. If your looking to purchase here are some good pointers.

When you’ve had a few lessons and decided you like surfing enough to continue learning and practicing, there will come a time when you want to buy your very first surfboard. Knowing what to buy can be tricky though, and you can’t always rely on the staff at a surf shop to sell you the right board for your skill level. Not because they don’t have the expertise, but rather because they might sell you the board they are really into and it could be either more advanced they you can ride or too expensive.

The trick is to not go into the process without any prior knowledge. If you were a beginner in the world of poker for example, you wouldn’t go and compete in a tournament in a casino without having learned the rules and educated yourself as much as possible, right? No, you’d spend as much time as you could researching the technical terms and tricks you can pick up from the internet. And then you’d log onto the partypoker website if you’re from the UK, or any other site which offers online rooms to practice in, and learn the practical way. It’s the exact same thing when you’re purchasing gear for your new favorite sport.

Volume: Make sure you take note of the volume of the board when you shop. Lots of volume will ensure you more float and stability on the water, which is key as a beginner, because you’re more likely to lose your balance. Bear in mind that the wider the board is the more stable it will be. Most surfers would recommend a long board for a beginner. You could go for a smaller board, but they take a lot of skill to get up on and ride well. A long board will allow you to go out in pretty much any condition.

Durability: As a beginner your board will be put to the test against the elements and your own clumsiness. You’ll want to buy a board which you are confident will last for a while, no matter what knocks it experiences.

Foam boards: If you haven’t been surfing for long, you’ll probably be better off choosing a foam board for the time being. If you were playing poker, you wouldn’t enter yourself into the high stakes games immediately, you’d test your ability with a safer table with lower stakes. Surfing is no different. With a foam board, they are relatively cheap and softer, so if you were to fall the wrong way you’d cause less injury to yourself. A foam board won’t last long if you surf all the time, but as an occasional surfer, they’re a decent purchase.

Longboard : The next step up from a foam board is a glassed long board. Faster and easier to maneuver on the water, they allow you to surf the wave better. If you decide to sell, it will still hold some value. The issue with them is, being longer they won’t fit inside most cars, plus they are quite heavy and bulky to carry. But once in the water they paddle easier and catch a lot of waves.

These are just some tips to start you off on the right track. Check through the website and you’ll gain a better grasp of the type of boards you can choose. If you have any questions please write them in to comments below and we will be sure to answer them for you.

Remember surfing is about having fun! And the best surfer in the water is the guy having the most fun.

Everyone knows that surfboards are a work of art. And these pieces of art are not cheap and they are fragile. If you get a deep ding in your board it not only costs money but time out of the water. So the best way to avoid damaging your boards and keep them safely is to put them in quality racks.

Here is a review of the Del Sol wooden wall racks sold on the website JustSurfRax.com

The racks are made of solid Pine wood and Birch dowels. The dowels are covered with black foam to protect your boards. they come with screws and caps ready to install.

The racks also have some nice finishing work. The back sections of the rack has sanded corners and is stained to make these rack look nice enough to hang inside the house.

Quality workmanship is apparent on the rack as you can see the dowels are not only installed deep in the back but they are also glued into their holes. This will make a huge difference in the durability over the long haul.

Installing is straight forward. I would recommend finding the studs in the wall to attach the racks too. You might consider using larger screws then the racks come with if your going to use these racks for heavy logs.

With 18″ dowels, these racks can store short boards with out a second thought but 18 inches is long enough to store your long boards too.

The bottom line of reviewing racks is kind of do they work or not. These racks work and work well.

The cost is $39 for a single rack, $55 for a double and $75 for a triple.

So now you might be thinking I can go buy the wood and do it my self for cheaper. Well in the past I have done this and thats exactly what you will get; a cheap rack. Meaning a rack that doesn’t look, work and really is not any less expensive after you go to the lumber yard and buy all the products and spend a day building them.

Bottom line: if you need surf racks this is a great option for straight forward racks that work, look good and are built to last. There are a lot of racks out there but none will get the job done any better.

Check out their to look at these racks and a bunch of other ones for your car, your bike or for display. Here is the link to their page: http://www.justsurfrax.com/

When you finally gather the cash to get a new board and the day you have been thinking about for day, weeks, months maybe years finally comes. You head down to your favorite shaper (you know the one you go and talk with about his boards like every week) to place the big order.

You give all the details down to logo placement, rail thickness, not too much rocker but some in the nose/tail, make sure the resin tint is aqua blue not light blue. Usually you get that smile of “you know we do our best to produce great boards”. But making a board is almost like growing a tree you know what your going to get when you put the seeds in the ground but sometimes its not exactly like you pictured it and it takes time.

From the time you lay your money down a lot of production has to happen.

Order the blank. Hopefully this gets done the same week you order. Sometimes shapers have to wait for a batch of orders before they submit to the blank manufacture. Usually it takes a 2-3 of weeks for custom blanks to get processed. (If its taking longer your shaper didn’t order it or the blank company is very backed up. I tend to believe the blank companies are on a more regimented / professional schedule)

Shaping the board – as you can see in the video this is where the magic happens. If your shaper get the blank cut by a CNC machine it reduces the hand shaping time. Usually 2 weeks

Laminate -> Glass-On Fin -> Hotcoat -> Sand -> Gloss & Polish. This is usually done at the glass shop and boards get worked through in a first come basis (unless a team rider needs it NOW!) This process usually takes another 2 weeks from the time it arrives to the glass house to finish.

So even though 4-6 weeks which is usually the answer you get sounds like a short amount of time; everyday that the waves come in seems longer then ever when waiting for that new sled to arrive.

Finally you get the call “Your board is here”. This basically is like your wife saying the baby is coming – at least for me – I find any reason to leave work, church, party, family functions, what ever to get to the to the shop to pick up that new board.

The boys over at Almond have put together a great video on the whole process. They are making some damn nice boards over there. You should go check them out

Isn’t the internet great? You get to check out all kinds of surf video’s for FREE. I can remember back in the old’n days you would have to go pull out cold hard cash and give it to your local surf shop to see this kind of footage.

This is a part 1 of a 3 part series of from the boys over at RVCA. Thanks for the awesome footage! of what seems like a great surf trip.